I can't seem to find the right words to express the joy I feel knowing this session has come to an end after 3 years.
About 2 years and some months ago we started this session, everything was looking so bright as we were just about to begin a new session, the ASUU went on strike. ASUU is a governing body here that associates with all the staff in the university, apparently the Federal Government was owing them some allowances and we the students were the ones paying the price. How is that even fair?
When we thought it was looking better, COVID -19 forced schools to shut down. We spent a long time at home while schools searched for alternatives to continue teaching. I will admit it was fun for a while, at least the first 2 weeks, gradually it became unbearable. Waking up each day in fear of what was going on in the world, watching the economy fall, watching the news, and seeing death tolls rising, it was heartbreaking. Those were truly challenging times and it didn't get better, not for a very long time.
Despite all the issues and challenges, ASUU refused to call off the strike and the Federal Government was not ready for any negotiation. Private Schools were not affected though, they took every precaution and continued with their teaching activities, I watched as people graduated from the university while I was at home trying to figure what to do with my life.
Staying at home did play a huge role in my growth as a person, it also introduced me to the Crypto world as well as creating in my mind the need to be financially independent. I would often spend most of my time watching inspirational quotes from the likes of Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Robert Kiyosaki, and many more. I didn't want it to be the end. Why now?
As things progressed, the Federal Government decided to go into negotiations with ASUU and Virtual learning began, it wasn't as effective as physical classes but I didn't mind, as long we were being taught (even though technically we were teaching ourselves), there was progress. We resumed physically for exams though, it was done batch by batch to keep up with the COVID regulations. It was nice to see new yet familiar faces after about a year and more.
Things were beginning to look up as the news of the Vaccine spread across the world, we resumed physically for the second half of the semester. Finally, things will return to normal, perhaps the lecturers will teach faster to try and cover up so we can be done with the semester, but it didn't go that way. We had to contend with some difficult courses and we had to do it all on our own.
Try teaching yourself really complicated cost analysis process or contract programming among other topics I wouldn't be able to mention to try and keep this article to a minimum...oops
Suddenly, there were cases of students contacting the COVID-19 virus. The news spread so fast forcing the school to shut down once again.
Not again
We didn't want to go back to virtual learning but we couldn't stay within the school premises anymore. We had a lot of classes which we were already lagging behind and now we had to face those classes we couldn't understand really well Virtually.
When I say this, these past 5 days (Monday to Friday) have been the most challenging period in my academic life. When I say this please do not take it as an overstatement
"This was the most difficult exam I have ever written"
It tested everyone's mental capabilities, it felt like the lecturers has a meeting behind closed doors to have fun with us. The things we expected didn't happen (not blindly, the lecturers specifically told us the mode of the question). You can imagine the shock when you get into the exam hall and see something you are just not prepared for, now imagine that happening back to back for different courses.
Regardless of what life throws at you, you can't just quit because it's hard, you fight back, and if you keep failing, you have to keep fighting till you succeed, this was my major motivation to continue. The price was seeing the end of this long session and getting into a new one. It's being so long since we have been stuck in this session.
Today marked the day we completed this session, at least on our part. I felt I needed to celebrate this but I couldn't go out because I was still exhausted. We (by we, I'm referring to my course mates and I) had a closing prayer after the last paper ended by 6 pm. I don't know about others but HappyBoy was very happy, you should have seen the way he danced. I decided to opt for junk food, it's not really healthy when it's taken every time but once in a while is not so bad given the circumstances. P.S I love food.
Spaghetti is my go-to food for any mood, so why not this (not that I knew exactly how I was feeling, this last paper was not funny either, I saw a boy asking for an extra sheet and it made me wonder if I knew what I was doing)
Anyway, it is done, finally. I didn't mean for this article to be this long, I just got caught up writing what was going through my mind.
My friends and I have organized a planned match by midnight, we will be playing Call of Duty and I plan to watch some animè before going to bed. That's it from me, have a wonderful evening friends, thanks for all the good wishes and support, you are the real MVPs.
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Covid19 do bring a lot of negative outcomes, but if we look on the other side, there was still positivity about it. But just keep on going, you can do it! Especially your academic tasks. Btw, is that spaghetti on the photo? Looks unique from what we have :)